This morning I raced a 40k Team Time Trial with one team made and a couple friends. I haven’t had luck sourcing a 1″ fork for my TT bike so I ended up using my TK2 track bike with 53 x 14 (Fixed).

We hadn’t practiced together as a team, but three of us have raced a few TTT’s before so we just picked a rider order, agreed on rotation direction, and went for it.  We were the first team off… Dry roads and minimal wind (rare!). We were working together really well then at about half way to the turnaround it started raining. I survived the turnaround and it looked like we had a good gap over the team that started behind us. As we were going through Punalu’u, I was riding on the front and a silver truck pulled out right in front of us then proceeded to cruise along well below the speed limit and about 10mph slower than we were travelling. We slowed down, then the driver slowed down some more, so we went to go around the guy. Next thing, the driver speeds up a little, and I tried to gesture him to accelerate and get out of our way. He then decided to hit the brakes right in front of us almost causing a crash. Eventually he drove off, but the damage had been done… We must have lost at least 10sec, but probably more. We got back down to business and did what we could to the finish and crossed the line in 53:43 based on the officials watch. We were beaten by BOCA by 2 seconds.

Prior to starting the TTT my aerobars felt solid, but a mixture of road vibrations, wet weather, and my death grip resulted in the left extension rotating 45deg and the right one creeping forward almost coming out of the clamp holding it in place. Trying to wiggle / slide it back in while riding a track bike in the rain with 3 guys makes for some exciting and nerve-racking times. Fortunately I kept the extension in there until the finish.

Moral of the story? If you see a silver truck on O’ahu with the license place RGD 814, please feel free to do whatever you see fit. The driver really doesn’t give a shit about cyclists. I brought up the incident to a cop at the race but he didn’t seem to care either… Probably too much to expect him to write a report and follow up with the driver.

- The speed limits here are SLOW. It was so nice to be able to drive north of 60mph without fear of being pulled over.
- The condition of roads here is not good. I didn’t hit a single pothole on a freeway while in California. Hawaii has a small temp swing and moderate weather yet we don’t seem to be able to have quality roads.
- Hawaii NEEDS Trader Joes.
- Hawaii NEEDS a velodrome! A couple of people I met at the track in Carson all said “If there was a track in Hawaii I would be there!” etc. Build it and they will come!

After the work portion of my trip was done I hopped on a place to LAX via MSP arriving at midnight, then drove south to my hotel in Wilmington. I should have gone to sleep immediately but Hangover 2 was on TV and I got sucked into that for 30mins. I eventually hit the hay at 1:30am, got a few hours sleep then headed out to the Velo Sports Center in Carson to ride the 250m indoor velodrome.

When I got to the track I met up with Giddeon Massie (Olympic track cyclist – 2004 and 2008 games) who agreed to give me some advice on my standing start. Instead of dragging my track bike from Hawaii to Nebraska and back to LA I shipped it to the track before I left and had to quickly throw it all together to get the most use out of the 8-10am Elite training time slot. Sharing the track with only 2-3 other riders (1 Olympian, and 2 US national team members) was pretty cool! After riding re-familiarizing myself with riding around a velodrome Giddeon had me do one start to see how bad I was. Sure enough, it wasn’t pretty, but hey, you’ve got to start somewhere! He explained to me what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do right, then did a start which I filmed and watched back in slow motion together. After that I did a few more starts aiming for correct technique. Not perfect, but now I’ve got something to work on before Elite Nats in August!

After my track time was up I drove south to visit the Oakley HQ at Foothills Ranch. I met a couple Chinese guys that work for Trek in Beijing outside the entrance so we took some photos of each other. I was hoping to get on a factory tour but that would have conflicted with my evening track session. I had to suffice with a look around the entrance and lobby, which was still cool as the building it definitely one of a kind. I also managed to do a walk-in warranty of some M-Frame lenses which had cracked so that made up for paying a few tolls on the highway!… Which reminds me, it is nice to drip at 80+mph on smooth highways with NO POTHOLES. We need to get the contractors that do CA roads to come and fix O’ahu’s roads!

In the afternoon I inhaled some lunch before heading back to the track to ride from 5-9pm. They had a “racer” session from 4-7 geared towards riders interested in racing vs. just getting the velodrome experience. From 7-9 is Roger Young’s session. Both are run by Roger who has competed in the Olympics, won Gold at the Pan Am Games, and coached numerous Olympic track teams. The 7-9 session is structured and split into a fast group and slower group with instructions provided by Roger over a mic while he’s riding with the slower group or towing around the fast group on the moto. This all happens with music blasting in the background. It’s a pretty unique experience and I wish we had something like this here in Hawaii! The closer we got to 9pm my legs were increasingly fried due to the amount of time I’d spent at the track. You can ride a bike all you want, but riding on a velodrome requires slightly different muscles, plus throw in the fact that you’re riding at high cadence without a break and you’re body will start to break down!

On Friday morning I really didn’t feel like going back to the track. The prior days travel between 4 states and a few times zones with a screwed up sleep pattern had caught up with me! After lazing around for 30mins contemplating going back to sleep, I dragged my stuff out to the car and back to the track. It’s not every day that I get to ride a velodrome and I needed to make the most of the limited time I had! The last big of riding on Siberian pine wasn’t the best quality, but it was still time on the boards and I was riding up to the top railing on turns before I packed up my bike to FedEx it back to Hawaii.

It was a slightly crazy trip but a lot of fun and I made a few new friends in the cycling world. I can’t wait to go back!

I shipped one of my track bikes over to LA last week and fly out to Omaha for work on Monday evening. On the way back to Hawaii I managed to work in a stopover in LA to train at the Velo Sports Center in Carson, CA (250m indoor velodrome) where Elite track nationals are typically held. I’ve not been on the boards since 2010 so I can’t wait to get in some real track time on a world class facility!

March 3, Castle-Hanauma Time Trial, 12.7 miles, O’ahu, Hawaii.
(Cat 1/2/3)
1st Overall
26:56.1

April 7, Tantalus Time Trial, 4.5 mile hillclimb.
(Cat 1/2/3)
3rd
20:13

The results blunder from Tantalus made me look back at some of the stuff I did in the past to try and break the record… Lots of time spent in Excel, testing out different lines, different pacing… It was a fun exercise and it’s good to have a bunch of data that will be of use to me as long as I can ride a bike fast.

On August 6, 2006, the day after I rode aggressively to take the win at the Olomana (Stage 1 of the Boca Stage Race), Raul from Boca approached me before the start of Tantalus ad asked me what time I was aiming for. I pulled out this crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and told time “18:30, but that’s probably wishful thinking”. To cross the finish in 18:29 was pretty satisfying… One of thing reasons I like cycling so much is that you can set goals and chase them, and when you achieve them it’s pretty damn sweet.

***Updated 4/11/2013***

Yesterday I raced the Tantalus Time Trial which is one of the longest running cycling events in Hawaii… If you’ve lived anywhere close to the 96813 zip code you’ve probably ridden it at least once, or if you have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with it like me, thousands of times. At one point when I was competing in NRC races on the mainland and focussed on trying to be a climber, I rode 6+ laps of it almost every week. It’s my “go to” places for doing FTP tests as you get a long ride up a steady grade with no traffic lights and minimal traffic. I’ve spent so much time up there that I know where I’ve got to be for a specific target time. I’ve ridden in in sunny hot conditions. I’ve ridden it in torrential downpours. If I had a couple million bucks burning a hole in my pocket I’d buy a house up there!

With my current focus being track racing, I haven’t spent my usual amount of time trying to climb like a spider monkey wearing crampons. A few climbs up Aiea Heights here and there but that’s about it. Beetween the end of last season and now I’ve ridden Tantalus few enough times that I can count them on one hand. As such, I wasn’t expecting to light the world on fire. Having ridden it in a low 23 the previous weekend, anything <23 would have been a bonus. I’ve done enough calculations on the effort required to climb Tantalus that my own lungs can’t carry 158lbs of cyclist up there in record time. I just don’t have the genetics for that kind of ride. The only way for me to be doing 18min rides up it is when I’m closer to 140lbs and putting out 370w. When Tom Danielson was here a few years ago supposedly he rode it in 14mins. Tommy D likes to dabble in some of that doping stuff so whatever.

I got to Tantalus before any other racers, found one of the few levels spots in the area to warm up on my Kreitler rollers, pinned on my race number, and got warmed up. For once, the weather was perfect with the execption of some VOG in the air. Just after 7am and I was off! I know all the time splits for an 18:30 ride, so I can gauge how good or bad I’m doing from early on. The first 4mins were OK. At 6min in I could see time slipping away, but no big deal as I wasn’t expecting to do 18:30 this year! Further up the course I felt like I was still doing OK, not brilliant, but putting in a fairly good effort. I crossed the line at the top in 20:13, one of my slowest ever race times and a time that I used to do 3 repeats of in training a few years back. Last year the race was one with a relatively slow time so I thought I might still be in with a chance. Last years winner (Eric Lau) was riding the single speed category so I didn’t expect that he would put in a time that would challenge fast guys on lightweight road bikes with gears. I would later be proven wrong.

It didn’t take long to find out that Jason Smith had beaten me with a high 19. Next across the line was Zebulon Brown who also nudged me by a few seconds. Impressive ride for a relatively new guy to the Hawaii road scene!

I grabbed my DSLR and headed back down to the start shooting photos of racers along the way. I like photography and cycling so it was cool to finally be able to both race and shoot photos of an event.

After I got home I saw the results posted online. First suprise was seeing that local triathlete Tim Marr had done an 18:44 riding his Specialized Shiv (definitely not light at ~18lbs and not what I’d call an ideal piece of kit for a hillclimb). Somehow he managed to get it up there sub 19.

Next surprise was seeing that Eric Lau had posted a new record of 18:27 riding a Specialized Tricross built up as a single speed, with a flat bar, and riding mountain bike shoes. The bike looked like it had been pulled out of the Ala Wai. As someone that’s put a lot of training and research into climbing up Tantalus sub 19, and having a best ever time of 18:29, to see someone go faster on a bike like that (while throwing shakas and making it look easy) certainly blows the mind. With that kind of impressive power he should be racing ProTour.

I had a strong hunch that there were some times from Sunday that didn’t make sense and today I received confirmation that there was a timing calculation error due to a rider not starting not being accounted for. As such, new results are forthcoming and Alexander Eiler’s record (18:32) from a few years back stands. I think Eric Lau still takes the win, just not with a sub 19. However, it’s still an impressive ride on a single speed that based on my own calcs must weigh ~16lbs.

The fastest time during a race that I’m aware of is my 18:29 in 2006 during the Boca Stage Race the day after I won stage 1 which was the Olomana Road Race. I should dig out the file and upload it to Strava!

I should rewind a bit to mile 82-ish… Coming down the 99 into Pearl City requires a lane change from left to right which my training partner made… A truck was behind and travelling fast and had to brake a little, but the move looks fine. The driver thought otherwise and decided to slow down, holding up traffic, and some verbal diarrhea ensued… “You cut my off…”… “What made you think that was OK?”… “Brah, you from da mainland eh?”… All this being said to a guy that looks about as local as you can get without being covered in Polynesian tats. The driver swerved onto the sholder in my path of travel putting me in danger as I was being squeezed off the road by a City Bus and running out of shoulder to ride on. No punches were thrown, but the driver acted like he wanted some of that action. Fortunately, the internet is an excellent resource and I know exactly who that guy is and he will hopefully be getting a visit from HPD. Always amazing that you can do 90% of a ride without incident then a few miles from home you have to deal with that kind of person with anger issues.

Saturday’s ride was also the first long ride that I’d done in my new Sidi Wire’s… They rock! Comfortable, stiff, and the new fastening system allows for precise adjustment for a perfect fit. Despite all the exposure to road grime they clean up really well! Lots more leather and wire mesh than other Sidi’s I’ve ridden so the only area that requires some real scrubbing is the fabric around the ankle area.

Sunday was another wet day so I did some late night riding on the rollers. Pre-roller fueling was in the form of mushroom / asparagus risotto with manchego cheese.